Technical Field
The present invention relates to an image forming system including an image forming apparatus such as a Multi-Functional Peripheral (MFP) and a technique related thereto.
Background Art
A technique for operating an image forming apparatus using an external terminal (remote control apparatus) is known.
For instance, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 05-122424 discloses a technique for directly transmitting operation screen data itself (e.g., bitmapped image data) from an image forming apparatus to an external terminal to display an operation screen on a display unit of the external terminal and transmitting and receiving operational position information regarding an operational position in the operation screen (e.g., information regarding a pressed position) to receive operation input through the operation screen. This is a so-called remote control technique using remote connection.
Incidentally, with the above remote control technique, a keyboard screen having a software keyboard may be used to input characters. Specifically, keyboard screen data itself (e.g., bitmapped image data) is transmitted from an image forming apparatus to an external terminal, and the keyboard screen is displayed on a display unit of the external terminal. Then, operational position information regarding an operational position in the keyboard screen (e.g., information regarding a pressed position) is transmitted from the external terminal to the image forming apparatus, and thereby characters input through the operation screen are received.
However, there are users who are not familiar with keyboard screen operations, and thus operability offered by the above technique is not necessarily sufficient.